The author seems to make a good point - where do we go from here? One pity though, he just had to mention a carbon tax, offhand, as though a panacea of unlimited capability perhaps? Phooey to that. And, no mention of a Super Mining Tax - curious omission.

The author also failed to mention that Hawke-Keating implemented a wages freeze and a moratorium on industrial action. What have we seen in recent times? Wage and salary catch-up, and no discernible downturn in industrial disputation - only to be expected under a Labor government of course.

"Dutch disease" - it sounds as though they at least had a foundation of established industry to fall back on. What have we got, after losing so much to offshore? Our level playing field seems to have had a distinctive "lean" - one-way.

Budget - to re-educate and employ the unemployed. So, where are the jobs? SWF or Future Fund - fizzled on batts and halls - and now dedicated to Broadband. Crikey, such vision is astonishing. And, the big bolster to our economic future? Drum roll please! Carbon Tax, surprise, surprise, and offshore processing! We've just never had it so good, have we.

Your guess is as good as mine, but if a mining tax would (definitely) be used to establish new internationally competitive industries in Oz, then I say we must find a way - but, without killing the golden goose. Otherwise, it's hitch up your skirts boys, and tighten your belts, for, it's Tax Time.

Ian

I'd like some serious answers to a few questions.

'We have coped with big transformations before, first in our agricultural sector and more recently in our manufacturing sector. Although these changes have been disruptive, each time we have come through them with a stronger and more competitive economy.

In other words, we do structural change well, and we should have no difficulty in coping with the demands of a mining boom and the need to place a price on carbon.'

Yes we are in a time of a required structual change ... again and yes we do handle structural change well.

But in the past the policy changes we implemented made us economicly stronger by making us more internationally competitive.

Are you going to tell me introducing a carbon tax here when it is not an international requirement is going to make us more internationally competitive?

Are you going to tell me returning to pre-Hawke-Keating days of industrial relations are going to make us more internationally competitive?

Are doing just those two things going to put us in an advantageous position internationally so that we can handle our current required structural change, or will the current policies disadvantage us?

Do you expect these two items to enable our industrial sector to recover quickly and be competitively internationally when the mining boom ends and even though the falling dollar will compensate only some of this negativity?

Finally tell me the effect of a falling dollar on our terms of trade and and our now record high government debt? And concentrate on interest rates and their effects on business please and how inevitably higher business interest rates will effect out international competitiveness?

I've learned what I know about economics from business experience of over 40 years. Where did you learn what you know of economics?

Ian were you at a labor party spin doctor session when you pened this article 'cos I just don't accept the labor spin that it's all because of Tony Abbott and the opposition?